Interview with Dr. Michael Ben-Eli

Posted on March 30, 2015 filed under Updates from Dr. Michael Ben-Eli

Recently, Michael Ben-Eli, founder of The Lab, sat down for an interview with Michael Wayne, Founder of The Center for Quantum Revolution. In addition to his private practice as a practitioner of Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, and Integrative Medicine, Wayne is also the author of several books, including Quantum-Integral Medicine: Towards a New Science of Healing and Human Potential, and The Low Density Lifestyle.

Over the course of an hour, Dr. Ben-Eli charts his course through life–his life-changing encounter with Buckminster Fuller, his eventual study of Cybernetics and Systems Dynamics, his attraction to and disillusionment with large multinationals like the UN and the World Bank, and ultimately, his vision for his work with The Sustainability Laboratory.

Don’t have a full hour?

Here’s a guide to the interview:

00:00 – 8:00: Early life, meeting with Buckminster Fuller.

“That’s the thing about life: you can never plan the really important things.”

8:00 – 19:30: Michael’s education in Cybernetics, System Dynamics, Managing Complexity, and the Theory of Evolution.

“It was like forming my own university, if you like, keeping my education in the way that I thought was most powerful. It always had to strike the right balance between conceptual development and actually experimenting with concepts in real projects.”

19:30 – 27:00: The problem with multinationals, the importance of experimentation, and the meaning of “second-order change.”

“These are not political issues. You cannot solve them by being a Democrat or a Republican…This is a design problem. You have to understand the science and the way systems work, and apply it in a way that makes sense.”

27:00 – 34:45: The concept and mission of The Sustainability Laboratory.